The evil science of non-compliance

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NEIL Comrie's devastating report into the Vivian Alvarez matter
is a chilling read that extends well beyond Amanda Vanstone's
hopelessly dysfunctional Department of Immigration and
Multicultural and Indigenous Affairs (DIMIA).

The failure, over two years, to act on information that the
department had removed an Australian citizen to the Philippines
could in years to come make a case study in what the latest edition
of Harvard Business Review describes as the
"passive-aggressive organisation".

According to the authors, Gary Neilson, Bruce Pasternack and
Karen Van Nuys, passive-aggressive organisations are usually large
and complex. The bigger and more complicated, the more places to
hide. No decision is final, there is a lot of second-guessing,
roles are vaguely defined to ensure plausible "deniability",
quality information is hard to obtain, the quality of work is not
accurately assessed, and beneath the apparent consensus and
conflict-free veneer, plans and promising projects can't seem to
get traction.

According to this model, there is little accountability in these
places. People have no idea what decisions they are responsible for
and the organisation itself teeters on a fulcrum of too much
control and not enough. Those in positions of authority lack the
information to make the right decision, and those with the
incentives and information lack the authority to execute.

The result: senior management thinks it controls stuff that it
doesn't and the organisation bristles with pockets of
resistance.

The writers say: "The category takes its name from the
organisation's quiet but tentative resistance, in every way but
openly, to corporate directives.

"In passive aggressive organisations, people pay those
directives lip service, putting in only enough effort to appear
compliant. Employees feel free to do as they see fit because there
are hardly ever unpleasant consequences, and the directives
themselves are often misguided and thus seem worthy of
defiance.

"Making matters worse, senior management has left unclear where
accountability actually lies, in effect absolving managers of final
responsibility for anything they do. Those with initiative must
wait interminably for a go-ahead, and their actions when finally
taken are accompanied by a chorus of second-guessing, a poor but
understandable substitute for the satisfaction of accomplishing the
task at hand."

That pretty much sums up DIMIA's handling of the Alvarez case.
Certainly the details contained in the Alvarez report point to an
entrenched passive aggressive organisational pathology, right from
the start.

Important clues were overlooked or missed from the time she was
admitted to the Richmond Clinic in Lismore in 2001. Some examples:
people she named to hospital staff who would have probably
identified her as an Australian citizen were not followed up.

Similarly, there was no follow-up of her saying in a formal
interview with DIMIA back in 2001 that she was a citizen and wanted
to stay in Australia. Despite a requirement under Migration
Instruction 234 to take her fingerprints  with her consent
 DIMIA did not, and her fingerprints were already on record
with Queensland Police.

One DIMIA officer made the assumption that she might have been a
sex slave which, the inquiry found, apparently influenced how the
case was handled.

When DIMIA officers discovered that an Australian citizen had
been removed and passed the information onto their supervisors, the
supervisors did nothing about it and the news was subsequently
covered up.

When her ex-husband, Robert Young, tried to obtain information
on her in 2003-05, both the Queensland Missing Persons Bureau and
DIMIA told him they could not tell him anything citing "privacy
issues".

The bureau and DIMIA both knew she had been removed from
Australia. A Queensland Police memo in October 2004 even gave
instructions not to give Young any details about her
deportation.

As Comrie reports, Young's email to the minister was the circuit
breaker. Without that, nothing would have happened.

True to passive-aggressive form, there was no "ownership" in the
department of the problem, and DIMIA officers seemed to have next
to no understanding of their responsibilities.

Some of the problems can be blamed on DIMIA's culture 
DIMIA staff told the inquiry that in some cases they deliberately
let stuff go unrecorded because they did not want to be seen to be
breaching departmental policy prohibiting suspected unlawful
non-citizens getting around the Migration Act  but the
HBR study suggests passive-aggressive organisational
behaviour is global and extends deep into the corporate world.

Of a global online survey of 30,000 conducted by consultants
Booz Allen Hamilton, the largest number, representing over a
quarter, reported the cluster of pathologies that would fit under
the passive-aggressive label.

Just as the Alvarez report has recommendations to address the
problem, the HBR study prescribes measures to cure the
patient, from bringing in new blood to ensuring there is good
information.

It sounds good on paper but in reality, passive-aggressive
organisations are by definition resistant to change.

The first step would be to understand the dynamics that shape
actions and underpin the pathology, demonstrating that there is a
choice. It might not transform immediately, but it could set a new
direction.